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Annie Mary Brown

Also known asAnne or AnnBiographyAnnie Mary Brown was a long-term and well-known resident of Ngunguru and was known to some as "The Mother of Ngunguru".
Annie was born to Mr Webster and his Ngāpuhi wife. At the age of twelve, she witnessed Hone Heke's attack on the flagpole at Russell (Korerareka). As a young woman, she sought refuge at Ngunguru after an affair estranged her from her community. Annie met Captain Thomas Stewart, an early settler at Ngunguru and they married in 1865. Annie, unversed in English ways, was provided with teachers by Stewart. However, she fell in love with her music teacher and they eloped. Stewart then asked his employee Peter Sturt Brown to retrieve Mary from Melbourne, Australia, which he did and Annie returned to her husband. Captain Stewart died in Whangarei from dropsy on the 10th of October 1867 and Annie married Peter Sturt Brown the following year.
Peter Brown constructed the Ngunguru Hotel and Brown’s Point Jetty, which served the community until 1932. He and Annie created the commercial centre of Ngunguru by setting up a general store and post office further downriver from their home and hotel.
In 1892, Peter went to Australia with a married woman. Annie petitioned the Court to declare him bankrupt for desertion and was granted the property which she managed from then on.
Peter returned to live in Ngunguru in the early 1900s and spent his later years with Annie in their old home. He had returned from Australia with nothing, while Annie had become a wealthy woman. In 1900 Annie became the owner of a substantial amount of land at Ngunguru. Years before, her first husband had defaulted a mortgage on this land. When the owner died, he left it to Annie.
She donated some land for a community cemetery at Cape Horn, upriver from her home. This cemetery was used for the burials of early settlers though little remains of it today (2025).
Annie Brown died on the first of June in 1924. She was approximately 87 years of age and was buried at the cemetery at Cape Horn. As she had no children, she donated most of her estate to charities.
Peter Sturt Brown died on the 3rd of August 1929. Date of Death1 June, 1924 Last edited by: Jennifer Gow